4 Comments:

True crime is absolutely modern folklore. Look at Jack the Ripper --the most-repeated things about JtR aren't even true. (There wasn't any fog in London during the times of the murders, he probably wasn't a gentleman in a top hat and definitely not a member of the royal family, and most crime historians agree that he didn't have any medical knowledge.) Those stories persist simply because they make good stories, and they get embellished along the way.

(I may not have made it to NoirCon, but I've made it to a few JtR conferences --and hosted one myself.)

Links to this post:

About Me

This blog is a proud winner of the 2009 Spinetingler Award for special services to the industry and its blogkeeper a proud former guest on Wisconsin Public Radio's Here on Earth. In civilian life I'm a copy editor in Philadelphia. When not reading crime fiction, I like to read history. When doing neither, I like to travel. When doing none of the above, I like listening to music or playing it, the latter rarely and badly.
Click here to find an independent bookstore near you.